


Anticipating Each Need

by afteriwake



Series: Love Is Like [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4333338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly invited Sherlock over but Mycroft put the kibosh on that date by giving him  case with a three day deadline, or so Sherlock thinks. But Molly surprises him, and while it’s not a very conventional date it does do quite a bit to show Molly knows just what he needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anticipating Each Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MagsyB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagsyB/gifts).



> And another story for **MagsyB** that's fluffy stuff! I like to think Molly knows Sherlock well enough and (at this point) has helped in enough cases to anticipate everything he might need in order to effectively work on a case. Anyway, this was inspired by a prompt I got from **imagineyourotp** I've had sitting in my prompts folder for a long time ( _Imagine Person A of your OTP having a big project/assignment to work on and deciding to eat dinner at their desk. They get so caught up in their work that their food gets ice cold. Going to take a bite, they make a displeased note, gaining Person B's attention (along with a quiet chuckle). Wordlessly, Person B reheats the food and returns it with a quick kiss on the forehead, receiving a tired smile from Person A._ ) that I'm happy I finally got to use! I tweaked it slightly to fit Sherlock but overall it works. I hope you all enjoy.

He hated to do this. But she’d asked him over and an hour later Mycroft had summoned him to the fortress he called his home and handed him a file and said he had three days to solve the case. His personal life was going to have to wait, and it irritated him that Molly had planned something and he was going to ruin it. He walked out of Mycroft’s study, file tucked under his arm, and pulled out his mobile. The sooner he told her, the sooner she could make other plans, he supposed.

She answered on the second ring. “Are you calling to cancel?” she asked.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“You already asked me if I would like you to bring anything, and you asked twice what time I wanted you over, and I had the feeling if you were calling again it was to tell me you had to cancel.”

“Mycroft summoned me and gave me a case,” he said. “It might have to do with Moriarty’s reemergence. I have three days to solve it.”

“Do you have to go anywhere to solve it?” she asked. “I mean, do you need to leave London?”

“Not right this moment,” he replied.

“Then come over anyway. I was going to fix dinner and surprise you with a Hitchcock double feature, but even if we can’t watch the films you should at least have a decent meal tonight.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I insist,” she said. “I wouldn’t be a good girlfriend if I didn’t at least try to take care of you.”

“I believe that’s the first time either of us used that term,” he said as a small smile spread across his lips.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “I didn’t realize.”

“I meant with each other. I’ve referred to you as my girlfriend to others,” he said. “I’m just very glad you see yourself as my girlfriend.”

“With as many dates as we’ve been on, I didn’t see us as anything else,” she said.”I mean, you want to be with me, obviously, and just me, so…we’re exclusive. There isn’t any reason we shouldn’t use the terms.”

“Absolutely,” he said. He made his way out of Mycroft’s home to the car that was waiting for him. “I just got into a car. I’ll have the driver take me to your home if you’re there.”

“I am. I have everything for supper so I’ll start now. Just knock when you get here, all right?”

“I will,” he said as the driver shut the door behind him. Moments later the driver got into the car and then lowered the partition between them and he gave him the address to Molly’s home, then leaned back in the seat and began looking over the file with more earnest. He would have to commandeer her laptop, he realized, but he would definitely make it a point to treat it better than John’s.

Mycroft was almost on the complete opposite edge of London from where Molly lived, and it took some time to get to her with evening traffic. He gathered up the contents of the folder and let himself out, not bothering to wait for the driver to open the door for him. He made his way quickly up to Molly’s home and knocked on the door when he got to it. She opened it a few minutes later and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “My laptop is on the table, and I took the art off my wall by the desk in case you need to use it for a case wall. I have thumbtacks next to the laptop.”

He gave her a wide grin and pulled her close, looking down at her. “How do you always seem to know what I need?”

“Magic,” she said with a chuckle. “But in this case I just used logic. Your brother probably picked you up from somewhere where you didn’t have your computer and you might need one, and if you were going to be here for a while it might help you to put things up where you can see them clearly.”

“There is certainly much to be said for your intelligence, among other things,” he said.

She put her arms around his neck. “Such as?”

“Your proficiency as a pathologist, your excellent cooking skills and your very appealing smile, for a start. I’ll try and think of more later,” he said, leaning in as he spoke.

“That’s a very good start,” she said softly before their lips met. He would love to take the time to kiss her the way she deserved, the way he wanted to, to give her all of his attention tonight, but he couldn’t and this would have to do. After a few minutes she pulled away. “I shouldn’t be distracting you. You have to work.”

“If you will remember, I pulled you close. I was distracting myself,” he said.

“Still. You have a deadline,” she said, pulling away from him so he could finish coming into her home. Once he was inside he shrugged out of his coat and took off his scarf and she took both before giving him a gentle shove towards her table. “Go ahead and get to work, Sherlock. I’ll put a plate on the table for you when dinner’s ready.”

He gave her a small smile before taking the file to the table. He would be nice and try as hard as possible not to use her wall if he could. There was quite a bit in the file, and he started to spread it out on the table, occasionally picking up a picture or going to the laptop to type in a name or location of significance. Within a half hour he realized he was indeed going to need to use her wall, and he went to the small box of thumbtacks, which were exactly where Molly said they would be, and began tacking them to the wall, occasionally going back to move something. He had lost track of how long he had been doing that before he heard a buzzer go off. “Molly?” he asked, looking up from the laptop.

“Just the timer letting me know to check the lasagna and add the cheese to the top layer,” she said. “I’ll have a plate for you in about ten minutes.”

He nodded and went back to the laptop. It almost felt as though there was no way he was going to solve this in three days. There were bits and pieces of things, things that when put together in certain ways could possibly be clues, but they made no sense. He needed context. He pulled out his mobile and sat at the chair at the desk, staring at the wall as he waited for his brother to pick up. Mycroft had no social life, and it wasn’t time for his own supper. If he wanted the case solved in three days he would make the time to answer questions. But the phone rang and rang before going to voicemail. He hung up and dialed again, and this time it went directly to voicemail. “Unbelievable,” he muttered.

“What is?” she asked from in front of the oven.

“My brother expects me to solve this case in three days and he isn’t answering his phone to give me the context I need.” He was close to the sofa and so he threw the phone at the cushions in frustration, hard enough to alleviate some anger but soft enough that it didn’t bounce off and land on the wooden floors. He ran a hand over his face and then let his head hang. “I see pieces that put together could mean any number of things, but without context it’s meaningless.”

“Does Anthea talk to you, or does she ignore you like she does everyone else?” Molly asked. “Because she could probably give you the context almost as well as your brother could.”

His head snapped up. “Molly, I could kiss you.”

“You can, after I put the cheese on,” she said. “And after you call her and see if she can help.”

Sherlock went over to the sofa and picked up his phone. Mycroft wasn’t aware he had Anthea’s mobile number, but every once in a while he felt the need to find out just where his brother was going to be or who he was with, and she would tell him for a price. He sent her the text to let her know he needed to talk, and two minutes later she called. She turned out to be a fount of information, filling him in on everything he needed from his brother and then some, and he put her on speaker and moved between the laptop and the wall. Molly at one point brought over a thick pad of post-it notes for him to take notes to pin up on the wall and he began to jot things down on those as well.

When the call finally ended an hour and a half later he looked at the wall. Finally, things were beginning to make sense. He heard his stomach growl and realized he was hungry, so he sat down at the table in front of the plate he saw sitting there. There was a fork and knife next to it, and he picked up the cutlery and proceeded to serve himself a portion. Once he took a bite, though, he grimaced. He’d ignored it for too long, he realized as he made a noise signaling his distaste. He heard Molly chuckle softly as she stood up from the sofa. “What?” he asked.

She shook her head and went to pick up the plate, taking it back into the kitchen. He turned in his chair and watched her take it to the microwave, which she opened and set the lasagna in. She hit some of the buttons and then waited, and when it dinged she pulled it out and brought it back over to him. She set it in front of him and leaned over to kiss his forehead softly before beginning to pull away. He reached over and grabbed her wrist before she got too far, though, and she looked down at his hand. “Sherlock?”

“I could have done it,” he said.

She gave him a smile. “Well, I just wanted to take care of you a bit, that’s all. Now eat it before it gets cold again, all right? And you can have more tomorrow, either for breakfast when you wake up or whenever you get hungry while you’re working.”

He blinked. “Wake up?” he asked, slightly confused.

“Well, you’ve got your case wall set up here. There’s no point in dismantling it to do it all over again over at Baker Street. So stay up as late as you want and then get some sleep in the guest bedroom, and keep working on the case from here.”

“You don’t have to give up your home for the duration of the case,” he said.

“It’s all right. It will be nice to have you around, so long as you aren’t loud at three o’clock in the morning.” She leaned down and gave him a quick kiss. “Eat your dinner while I go make sure the bed has fresh linens for you. Then maybe you can tell me what you’ve figured out and I can listen while you work out anything else you need to work out, since I know it helps you to do that.”

He stood up after a moment and gently framed her face in his hands. He had expected her to give him space when he called to cancel their date; all of this was unexpected but very welcome. “I believe I owe you a kiss for suggesting I speak with Anthea,” he said.

“You did say something about that,” she said with a smile.

“I owe you more than that, though. All of this help is something I greatly appreciate. And you did it all without me having to ask.”

“I just thought if you solved the case soon then I can have some of your attention again, so if I made it easier you could solve it faster. But eat first, all right? You can explain brilliant deductions between kisses _after_ you eat.”

“All right,” he said, letting her go. She gave him one last grin and made her way towards the guest bedroom, and he sat down and took the fork to the lasagna again, this time enjoying the bite that he ate. As he ate he decided that no matter what, he would find a way to thank Molly for doing exactly what he needed her to do. Their next date would be their most spectacular yet if it killed him.


End file.
